Fertility 2.0 - Black Rock City is a kind of Petri dish. Theme camps cling in fertile clusters to its latticework of streets, artworks tumble out of it, like pollen on the air. These nodes of interaction mutate, grow and reproduce their kind. Burning Man communities have now escaped this capsule world: our culture in a Petri dish has effloresced - it spreads across five continents. This year's art theme contemplates the tendency of any being or living system to create abundant life.

Totally agree its a nod to the last experiment. I think the experiment is to discover if burning man is actually fertile, or sterile. Can it reproduce? In an environment where the event can no longer be all inclusive, can it create new life and new burns? Will it multiply and become a true culture? Or will its spirit die a Moopy, tourist filled, theme camp-less death?

Meanwhile, people are suggesting that as long as there are a bunch of people milling around meeting each other and being cool, it'll be as good of an Art Festival as it was when it was an Art Festival, and not a social club with a $400 cover charge.

I can meet interesting people any day of the week in Portland, Eugene, Seattle, San Francisco, London, New Orleans... places with actual sanitation, water and medical facilities.

So...why do it in the Black Rock Desert? 'Cause driving out there in an RV, firing up a generator and crapping the portable toilets cleaned for you twice a day in a city built for you is "radical self-reliance?"

Why do we do this in the desert?

"The Red Baron is smart.. He never spends the whole night dancing and drinking root beer.. "-The WWI Flying Ace